Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Answering every Vikings-Packers fan question possible, from matchups in the trenches to when the Packers will not be good anymore

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

Minnesota Vikings fans have questions about their matchup with the Green Bay Packers -- a LOT of questions. We start with when the Packers' stranglehold on the NFC North will be over and move on to whether Harrison Phillips is a key swingman, the key players if the Vikings were to win by three scores, whether we could still feel good about the Vikings if they don't win the game and many many more  -- For more of Matthew's Vikings coverage, head to purpleinsider.substack.com For bonus discussions, interview clips, and more videos, check out our YouTube channel! Interact with us on Twitter! @Purple_Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is a very special Vikings Packers fans only episode. So this will be all the questions that I've gotten regarding the Vikings and Packers. And since I put it out there on Twitter, I've gotten a flood of tremendous questions. So I'm going to answer as many as I possibly can. And I'll work in more to a later podcast this week because so many people came in with great and interesting and fun stuff. So we're not going to mess around here. We're going to get right into the questions and blast through as many as we possibly can. And yes, we've got a Diet Dr. Pepper here and ready to go. Before I get into it, actually, let me say very good news on the Vikings front from practice.

They have only one person on the injury report, and that was Jonathan Bullard, and he was limited. So that means that Irv Smith Jr. not on the injury report. Louis C. not on the injury report. Andrew Booth Jr., guys that were banged up, are all back and ready to go. So Jonathan Bullard, the only one. And that, my friends, is exactly why you don't play the starters or even really the second-teamers when it comes to the preseason. That is exactly why, because you go into week one with the best possible version of your

roster. And even if some guys are a little rusty in the first quarter, you will take that over not being able to play at all. So I would say a very laudable job by Kevin O'Connell and the staff going into this week. Very, very healthy and some luck came into that too. And of course there's BC Johnson who's out for the year that isn't on the injury report for this week.

Cause he's out for the season. So he's really the only casualty of training camp when it came to injuries. All right, let's get right into these questions. This comes from Jackie via email. Talk me into the Packers dynasty ending in the next five years and forcing a rebuild slash terrible seasons. Well, I think that that just simply starts with the timeline of quarterback in the next five seasons means that Aaron Rodgers would have to retire. And I just have a tough time seeing Aaron Rodgers playing five more seasons.

But also you look at kind of the bones of their team. It's a lot of veteran star players, Jair Alexander, Kenny Clark, even their running back Aaron Jones, I think is 26 or 27 years old. A lot of their good players are on the veteran side of things. David Bakhtiari, who is limited in practice. So was Elton Jenkins. That's not to say that the Packers have no young talent, but they are paying a lot of veteran players in the same way that the Vikings were after say 2019. And if Rogers retires and Jordan Love is not the guy, and there were some reports this year that Jordan Love looked a lot better in camp, a lot

better in preseason, but not to the level of what Aaron Rogers was looking like before he took over for Brett Favre and why the Packers were comfortable moving on from Favre. We haven't heard quite those types of things about Jordan Love, but if the Packers had salary cap problems, had to get rid of players or veteran players got old and they moved on from them or they retire and they're left with basically Jordan Love and a pretty weak roster. And let's say they have a bad draft or two. It's not that hard to see down the road. Now, I mean, if you've been watching the Vikings for the last 30 years and you've seen nothing but Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, it does seem nearly impossible. And the Packers would also be a team that might move heaven and earth to get a veteran quarterback that's on their last legs. I mean, we've seen Matt Ryan and Russell Wilson and Matt Stafford and Tom Brady, like all

these quarterbacks moving to different spots. I mean, the Packers are the type of team that would try to attract one of those quarterbacks. If Aaron Rogers were to say, retire after this year, and they still had a lot of their good players, but if Rogers plays for two or three more seasons, then after that, I mean, you might even just lose Jordan love to free agency and someone else could pick them up. And then after that, you're talking about the possibility of a complete rebuild. And here's the thing, like I've said that tanking works and rebuilding works, and these are smart strategies and they certainly are. But if you get unlucky, you can become the New York jets.

The New York jets drafted Mark Sanchez. They drafted Sam Darnold. They drafted Zach Wilson. And it's none of them have been hits so far. You think that drafting high quarterbacks that often you would end up with something, but sometimes you can get stuck in this rut and there's nothing that says just because they are the Packers, they have to be great. It's just like how, you know, the Buffalo bills for 20 straight years were absolutely horrendous. And then all of a sudden they're good. Like we see

these stretches all the time in the NFL. So if it's going to happen, it's entirely rooted in Rogers playing to a point where they lose Jordan, loved a free agency. And essentially that draft pick ends up meaning nothing to them. And then there's no immediate replacement. They draft a quarterback. It doesn't work out. The roster has these great players eventually leave and you're end and you end up with just a really

not competitive team for a little bit. Um, maybe that will get you excited about, you know, the, the next five years and where this thing could go. Um, you know, the Packers, uh, you know, just like the Indianapolis Colts, like they had great quarterback play for so long. It just doesn't really guarantee you anything. So that could be at some point on the horizon for them. If Rogers say doesn't retire this year and then Jordan love becomes very good. It will be an interesting test case by the way, with Jordan love, because this is kind of old school of drafting a quarterback and having him sit. I don't know that it was intentional, but having him sit on the bench, you just don't see that ever in the NFL anymore. If somebody sits for one year,

it's kind of a lot, but usually they're in there after one, um, that whole, we're going to actually develop somebody thing has kind of gone by the wayside. So is it possible? Yeah, no, it certainly is. And it's, uh, something that they kind of don't have a lot of control over. Rodgers will retire and you're either going to hit on the next quarterback or not. And that's going to determine their ultimate fate. Good question. So on to the next one. Let's see here.

This from Matt via email here. Fans only question that has maybe missed the offseason window from now to 2030. Will the Vikings or Bears have more postseason success? You can define success however you want. 2030 is a long time, my friend. 2030 is a long time. If you were to say maybe even 2025, that's a little easier to see. I mean, 2030, it's very similar to the last

question. It really depends on who comes after Kirk cousins and does Justin Fields work out for the bears. I think that the bears are in a better rebuilding position than the Vikings are with the way they set up their salary cap, but the Vikings are in a better position right now to get into the playoffs this year or next year and potentially win some games. 2030, I don't know. I mean, that's like, there's nobody on the team right now that will be on the team in 2030, save for maybe Christian Derrissaw and Justin Jefferson and possibly like the guys that they just drafted, but even then, I mean, that's extremely unlikely. But in the immediate window, I think the Vikings have a shot this year to be a good team and potentially a shot next year, depending on how everybody looks in terms of the veteran players.

And then after that, there will have to be some sort of reset eventually for the Vikings as they look for a different quarterback, just based on Kirk's age, unless he plays really, really well or better. If he goes deep into the playoffs and then continues that into his late 30s. But that's a pretty tough task. So right now, I guess I would pick the Bears based on the fact that they have a young quarterback and the long-term vision is maybe a little better, but I mean, that one is incredibly difficult to try to figure out.

Also real quick, the Bears want to put a roof on a new stadium. I mean, come on, what? The Chicago Bears, the monsters of the midway want to put a roof on it. That is a shame. Uh, all right. Onto the next question. This, uh, at J underscore me 41 would love to hear what pre-draft analysts like Eric eager. Well, he's not really a draft analyst, but I get you. We're saying about Jalen Rager versus what they said pre-draft for Treadwell. Okay. So I called up Jalen Rager's PFF profile. Now, I don't know if there's one of these from when Treadwell was picked because over

the last couple of years, PFF has made their, you know, their, their profiles like really good, but that was a few years ago, 2016. So with Jalen Rager, here's what Mike Renner wrote about him. He said, there's no way to sugarcoat it the production was bad for regger this season however there are legit excuses for that like him statistically lining up at right wide receiver every snap almost never getting thrown screens and having one of the worst quarterback situations in the country the ability to consistently get behind defenses was still very much there even if the the numbers don't show it, I'll take an explosive athlete with ball skills like

ragers every day of the week. And with Treadwell, now I've looked over this a bunch of times. So I have this kind of in my head already with Treadwell. It was, he can be Anquan Bolden. He can be Larry Fitzgerald. He can be the less fast wide receiver that does it with route running, does it with strength and is able to kind of dominate his opponents. But everybody knew that the speed was going to be an issue. It's just that, uh, they kind of thought that

it wouldn't be a defining thing for Treadwell. And to tell you the truth, I'm not really sure that it was the defining thing. I think the defining thing was that Treadwell. And to tell you the truth, I'm not really sure that it was the defining thing. I think the defining thing was that Treadwell couldn't get down the route depths and couldn't get down the ways that he needed to create separation from defenders. Technically speaking, like Laquan Treadwell, 2016, if he ran a 40-yard dash right next to Adam Thielen right now, those two go, I think that Laquan Treadwell probably is about the same speed as Adam Thielen right now. And Thielen is still going to be good because he's got great, great hands. He masters the playbook. He knows how to get away from guys. I mean, Thielen was a really good basketball player.

He's very shifty. He understands his leverage. He understands the yard markers because these plays work. They're, they're proven to work if you run them effectively and Treadwell just did not know how to run them effectively. And how could you know that coming out of college? So the draft analyst looked at his raw skill and said, you know what? I don't think this speed thing is going to be a massive issue. I think that it's going to be, uh, his, his power and his hands. And remember he was a contested catch monster, like, okay, great. Those things should translate, but it was the, the mental part that really didn't for him. And he's still hanging around in the league, but like that was the issue for Treadwell for why he didn't maximize, uh, what he did now

with a regger, maybe the production thing should have been paid more attention to that. That would be like, if you're second guessing, I think with Treadwell, you can't really second guess it because a look at, you know, the league let Michael Thomas drop. Um, it was kind of a flawed receiver draft anyway, but most of the analysts were just on this one. If somebody doesn't have production in college that correlates to not having success in the NFL, like that is proven that there are, of course, the Neil Hunter, there are outliers, but that's usually the case. The other thing is if a guy lines up at one receiver spot all the time, that's a bit of a red flag for me. Like Justin Jefferson got criticized for moving around. And I thought

that's a compliment that the guy can move around to a lot of different spots, play the slot, play outside. And maybe that was part of Rager, but I have not watched enough of him in Philadelphia to know exactly what the problem was in the NFL. You know, his production wasn't horrendous, but it seems like they tried to throw a lot of short passes to him. His deep ball stuff was just awful. I think it was three for 25 throwing deep to Jalen Rager. Uh, so they tried to do a lot of short stuff with him and his explosiveness just did not really translate, but he could still be a guy on the team. And that's all they're really looking for. Like, like Jalen Rager, if he ends up being a big conversation outside of being a punt returner

for this team, uh, something went kind of wrong. All right, this comes from Andrew via email. We know the teams no longer play 3-4 the way the Steelers did with Joel Steed and Casey Hampton. Those are some great names. What is the official Purple Insider over under this week for snaps that Daniil Hunter and Cedarius Smith will play without their hands in the ground. If it's higher than 5.5 for Hunter and 9.5 for Smith, I'm taking the under. Z'Darrius Smith is not going to put his hand in the dirt a whole lot. From seeing him play numerous times for the Green Bay Packers, I think that he will line up at times at defensive tackle. So yeah, he'll put his hand in the dirt there, but even then he would stand up rush over the middle of the offensive line on third downs and on key passing

situations. If it was second and 15 or something like that, he would even be standing up then. I think the majority of the time you will see Zedarius Smith, uh, doing that now with Daniil Hunter, maybe less. So I wouldn't be surprised if Daniil Hunter has his hand in the ground quite often. Now, and that's another thing too, is that in the past rush situations, one of the things that a lot of teams have been doing in recent years is sort of standing everybody up on a third down and having people wander around and having it unclear where they're going to line up unclear where they're going to line up or where they're going to rush from. So I think that both guys will stand up their fair share,

but if I had to guess, it would be way more Zedarius Smith standing up, lining up in different spots than it would be Daniel Hunter, who I think will be rushing mostly off of the same side. And a lot of times with his hand down in the dirt, because that's just what he's had so much success with. You don't want to change when a guy has 14 and a half sacks, uh, you know, multiple seasons of like that, where it's double digit sacks. You don't want to change too much, but I also can't say for certain based on camp, like in camp, sometimes they were standing up. Sometimes they had their hands in the dirt. But it'll be a lot of nickel, you know, I think more than anything, like you said, more than just that traditional 3-4.

But I'm also curious if the Packers actually try to put out some extra tight ends, extra, you know, running backs in the backfield, like try to do something to force the Vikings into their base package and say, all right, well guys play those traditional three, four outside linebackers, which might mean that we're going to try to motion somebody, try to make it. So, you know, Zedaria Smith or Daniel Hunter on a key play has to actually cover someone. They're going to do everything they can to make sure that does not happen. The Vikings will, but if you're an opposing team and you know what their base is, then you're probably going to at least try that a couple of times during a game.

All right. This from, uh, at JD Cameron on Twitter, three best matchups in the game. Well, I mean, number one is Zedaria Smith versus David Bakhtiari for me. Well, you know, we talk a lot about that one, but that is a great matchup if Bakhtiari is healthy and he plays. And I know I make fun of the revenge game stuff, but I'm just interested to see Zedaria Smith play football because he's looked so good during training camp because he was so effective in 2019 and 2020.

I mean, and just seeing the guy up close in camp, the way he plays, the violence, the technique, all these things, he's just an exciting player to watch. So I put that one up there. Jair Alexander against Justin Jefferson. Will Jair Alexander, will he shadow Justin Jefferson? I tend to think the answer is going to be yes, but they will move Jefferson into the slot. And a lot of times you don't have that, that shadow cornerback, uh, too often coming into the slot. So are they going to have him just follow Jefferson around altogether? Uh, If you recall, I mean, Stefan Diggs and Jair Alexander had some good battles. Diggs won a lot of those. And now Jefferson's getting a chance here at a huge game to go up against a healthy Jair Alexander. He was out most of the season

last year. And, you know, I think that, and maybe there'll be other questions about this for this podcast, but interior offensive line versus Kenny Clark. There is a quote from Kenny Clark today to the green Bay media where Kenny Clark said that he likes playing in Minnesota and, uh, you know, he, he enjoys it like, Oh, he loves the skull chant and everything. You're like, well, no kidding. I mean, no kidding.

He likes playing in, you know, in Minnesota. He's absolutely demolished the Minnesota Vikings. And I think that, you know, this is a, this is a huge test right away for Ed Ingram. It's a huge test for Garrett Bradbury to see if any of the weight that he supposedly put on is going to matter. And it's a big test for Kevin O'Connell to scheme those guys to get them a little bit of help. You know, I just think that that matchup right there

could determine how this game goes. And if you're going to add one other one, it's any Packers receiver versus Vikings defense. Can any Packers receiver, Sammy Watkinskins we'll see on Alan Lazard, but you know, Sammy Watkins or Romeo dupes has got a lot of, uh, praise during this, this, uh, off season. So will any Packers receiver be good against the Vikings is probably like a three, a matchup, uh, for this, uh, for this game, folks, football season is here and you need more gear to represent Minnesota football. Adam Thielen, Randy Moss, John Randall, the purple people eaters, Bud Grant,

all great designs from SodaStick that you can put on hoodies, hats, t-shirts, go to SodaStick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Use the promo code Purple Insider to get 15% off your purchase. All right, this comes from at Dr. Huge on Twitter. Favorite uniform matchup in rivalry history. Oh, wow. I mean, does that mean all NFL rivalries or favorite version of the Vikings against the Packers? Cause the Packers have obviously had, uh, you know, the same uniforms. Well, that's a great question. I think that Dallas and San Francisco is number one for me, but Pittsburgh and Dallas is also great.

I know that nobody here in Minnesota likes Dallas for any reason, but you have to admit the uniform is just classic. It is tremendous. San Francisco, Dallas in the nineties, those two teams going at it. You just couldn't have designed it any better. How about the Las Vegas Raiders versus the Los Angeles Chargers as far as matchups go? And then maybe just even on the field at the same time, you could throw Kansas City versus either of those teams

as a tremendous, tremendous matchup. Let's see. Trying to think of other rivalries that we would have that would make for good matchups. Like New Orleans and Atlanta, depending on what Atlanta wears is pretty good. Pittsburgh and Cleveland is pretty classic, but is Cleveland really a rival for Pittsburgh would be a question.

And I mean, I don't know if Vikings and Packers makes this list because I mean, the purple versus the green is just like a, a kind of a gnarly combination of colors, but both teams have great uniforms. I think the Vikings have one of the better uniforms in the league. Definitely one of the better logos, the horn and the Packers. Like, look, you can make fun of Wisconsin. You can probably not make fun of the cheese. Cause we all know their cheese is good. You can't really make fun of one of the classic all time uniforms. It, it's, you know, it looks great out there. So if it's Vikings, how about this? If it's Vikings wearing all whites and green Bay in green. Now that is a great Jersey matchup between the Vikings and the Packers. Uh, all right. Next question. This from at sky you Miko craziest Vikings Packers game in

your life. Mine is 2008 at the Metrodome when Crosby missed the game winning field goal. So, uh, craziest one of my life. How about of the time that I've been covering the team is a little easier for me, uh, to remember all the details of each game. And that would be clearly the 2018 game where Daniel Carlson missed all the field goals and Mason Crosby also missed field goals in that game too. And it was one of the craziest Vikings Packers games ever. The Vikings got down in that game. I want to say it was something like 29 to seven and they came back. Kirk was tremendous, but the league, if you recall, was making all these bizarre roughing the passer calls,

both teams got them. Uh, so there was an interception that looked like the game was over and then all of a sudden it wasn't. And Kirk led a game tying drive. Laquan Treadwell, second mention in this podcast scored a touchdown in that game. It might've been his only touchdown as a Minnesota Viking, I think. Maybe there was another one, but that was actually on a nice route. That game made me think at the time completely wrongly, and this goes for how we're going to judge Kevin O'Connell early on. I thought that they had the perfect offensive strategy. And I felt like after that game, as weird as it was and as gut punching as it was, that the Vikings were really onto something with this offense.

Like, wow. Okay. This is not the case. Keenum offense. This is why Kirk came here to throw the ball all over the yard and they're going to light it up. And throughout that season, they did have their moments in Los Angeles as well. But then as John DeFilippo and Mike Zimmer started to butt heads, then, you know, things started to go off the rails and Kirk had a typical down month. And it just got really ugly with that offense eventually. And I think that DeFilippo probably didn't adjust in some ways that he needed to adjust

after opponents figured out kind of what they were doing with all the quick passing and shotgun stuff and started to take away Thielen and Diggs where they would just double team them on every big down. That Packers game came before that and there were some big plays there. Brian O'Neal had his debut in that game and was excellent. That Packers game came before that. And there were some big plays there. Brian O'Neill had his debut in that game and was excellent. That was memorable. And I will never forget walking out of there and to go down to the locker room in Green Bay, you have to go down an elevator, but then outdoors, which is super fun in January. And you have to walk a long way outdoors to go in another room where then it leads you to the locker room. So you walk over the fans leaving the stadium

and there was no noise. Normally, if it's a loss, it's like a lot of, you know, you can sort of hear grumbling or frustration or like your random fans of the other team, whooping it up a little bit. Or if it's a win, like everybody's like super pumped. This was just like quiet murmurs. It was, it was the, it was the weirdest locker room too. And the Vikings were, they were pretty distraught after that game because they knew that they should have had that one. And, uh, Daniel Carlson did not come through. And then of course, Mike Zimmer dropped his all time. Did you see the game line after that? So that is the most memorable since I've been here, but there have been quite a few that have been crazy since, uh, since I I've been here even last year is at us bank stadium.

I mean, everything felt kind of miserable just because of where the team was at, but the actual game where Kirk throws a pass that I think if the cornerback saw it's a pick six, but he didn't. So Adam Thielen catches it, leads a game winning drive there. Uh, but then Rogers was insane and he was coming off the toe injury and, uh, that, yeah, that was, that was pretty nuts. That was pretty crazy. Uh, onto the next one. This is, uh, from at J T M N skull. Let's see the Vikings beat the Packers by three scores provide three reasons why that happens. Reason number one is that the Vikings pressure Aaron Rogers. If I've mentioned this stat before, I am sorry, but I'm going to bring

it up again. The difference between Aaron Rogers last year with and without pressure was almost as massive as Kirk Cousins last year. Aaron Rodgers, when pressured averaged 5.1 yards per pass attempt 5.1 and had a quarterback rating of 67.9. That is not good at all. When he was clean, he was the MVP. He had the best quarterback rating in the league when he had a clean pocket. And through, listen to this, 29 touchdowns and one pick when he was clean. I'm sorry if I mentioned the same stats yesterday, but it just blows my mind how much of a difference there was between Rodgers clean and pressured. And that probably was not the case early in his

career. So reason number one is the Vikings pressured Aaron Rogers, whether that's through Zedarius Smith and Daniil Hunter, or if it's coverage, uh, messing him up a little bit, or his receivers not getting open or the Viking stopping the run and them being forced to pass all the time from second and long or whatever else. That is definitely reason number one. Reason number two would just be that the Vikings pass protect for Kirk Cousins. And look, this is a game in the trenches. I mean, it's a little bit of an old school analysis, but it's true. It's a game in the trenches.

I don't think there's anyone who can guard Justin Jefferson down the field, not even Jair Alexander, as good as he is. Jefferson still had his moments last year against the Rams when they were playing Jalen Ramsey. I don't think there's anyone who just takes Jefferson out of a game. And it just comes down to whether Cousins is going to be comfortable. And that's the biggest thing. And for whatever reason,

and this is why Cousins can be so hard to figure out sometimes, for whatever reason, Cousins does not seem to get overly worked up about the Packers. He's had good games against them. He's had bad games against them. But when it comes to like the nervous looking Cousins, we just haven't seen that that many times versus the Packers. I think 2019 was it. And what caused that? Zedaria Smith, pass pressure. And I guess I would throw out there the other reason might be

just some things go their way. Like you get an interception off a tip pass or you get a fumble or something like that. To beat them by three scores, Remember when the Vikings lost to Buffalo and how it was just over really fast, like they fumbled, I think twice early and the bills took advantage both times. And then it was just like desperation. And then they're losing. It would have to be kind of like that where things go really wrong early turnovers early for Rogers. And then all of a sudden it's just sort of like, Oh, it's 24, nothing. And they're

not being able to come back or whatever. Cause Rogers doesn't have the receivers. Like look at that new Orleans game last year, uh, where he clearly wasn't comfortable, hadn't played in the preseason, hadn't really, uh, shown to minicamp or OTAs or anything like that, that Rogers is just extremely rusty. Now I think he won't be that he'll be ready for this football game because it's the Packers and the Vikings and he's, this isn't just like some regular old game, but if he's really rusty and fumbles the ball and has some problems, then yeah, like that, it could happen. I mean, like that would be why that would be why I'm not saying it's likely, but that would be why it would end

up happening is that you get after him. There's some turnovers for the Packers that, and the, you know, the Vikings defense causes those turnovers and then they simply protect Kirk cousins, uh, against a really, really good pass rush. All right. This comes from at mini sports 69. Nice. Uh, is this a vengeance matchup for Zedaria Smith? How many sacks for him and Hunter totaling on Aaron Rogers? So it's like, yes and no. I mean, uh, I feel like Zedaria Smith has given different answers to different people about whether it's a revenge game. I'm making fun of the revenge game idea because the green Bay Packers signed Zedaria Smith from Baltimore and elevated his stardom, put him in a position to get double digit sacks and get another contract.

I mean, I I'm sure there's some behind the scenes stuff that Zedaria Smith maybe wasn't happy with, or they didn't offer him a contract because Rashawn Gary became a superstar player as well. It's not really in my mind, a revenge game. I think that after Favre that all of us need to say the standard for talking about Minnesota Vikings, revenge games is super, super high. We will not top that. Now, when Cousins goes to Washington, that is a revenge game. That's a franchise that did not believe in him. It's a franchise that tweeted out a contract offer to him because they were so irritated

he wasn't taking a mediocre contract from them. They believed in RG3, not him, rolled out the red carpet for RG3, acted like he was the stepchild. Like, come on. I mean, that's a revenge game. That is a revenge game. But this one, I don't know. This is like a guy who definitely played for the other team before and he's playing them

now. I just don't put it in as a revenge game. As far as their sacks, this is going to be like, I I'm sorry to sound like football nerd here. I don't care as much about their sacks because it's hard to sack Aaron Rogers. He throws the ball away a lot. That might actually be the better stat. If Aaron Rogers throws the ball out of bounds five, seven times, then you've won. Then, then Zedaria Smith and Daniil Hunter have won and they've been able to pressure him pretty quickly with a four man rush. If, if he's having to throw the ball away a lot, that means he's uncomfortable.

That means he's nervous about the pressure and like the worst version of Aaron Rodgers. That's what it looks like, right? It doesn't look like a guy getting sacked all over the place and like the worst version of Aaron Rodgers. That's what it looks like, right? It doesn't look like a guy getting sacked all over the place and throwing horrible picks. It looks like a guy throwing it out of bounds a lot. And that's one of the reasons that, I mean, he's good. Like it's one of the reasons that helps him is that when things go wrong, he kind of knows the right times to just get rid of the football and live to see another day. But you want to see that on multiple occasions. So if he throws the ball away five times in this game, then Zedarius Smith has gotten

his finger quote revenge. Uh, impact. Oh, this comes from at D money. Zero nine one nine impact of Ellen Lazard is unavailable. Does Harrison Phillips become the key to the defense? So I'm assuming what you mean is, is because of the run game, right? That, uh, if Alan Lazard isn't out there, then they're going to have to, uh, just, you know, run the ball all the time. And I think that there's shades of truth to that. I was thinking about, and I know it was in the wind and the snow and everything, but the 2020 matchup at Lambeau between the Vikings and Packers and how Rogers of course made some plays in that game. And Devante Adams was still in that game, but they kind of, he scored a couple touchdowns, but he didn't dominate the game. So I'm pulling this up right now. Yeah. So he had seven catches for only 53

yards in that game. So that would be an example of one of the times they kind of took them out of that game. And Rogers found some other people, someone named Malik Taylor had a catch in that game. Tyler Irvin, I think he was supposed to be a guy for them at one point, but he struggled to find that consistent weapon that he really trusted. And, you know, the thing that did keep them in that game was that they ran really well. They were 75 yards for Jamal Williams and A.J. Dillon had 21 yards on the ground. So the Packers did run well in that game.

And Roger still finished with a great stat line, by the way, had had 110 quarterback rating in that game. So, yeah, I guess that maybe, um, isn't exactly the model, but I was thinking that the Vikings slowed them down enough to win that game. And part of it was just that outside of Devante Adams, he couldn't find other people to consistently go to. He might find a guy here, a guy there, but you would see him looking around, looking around, not being able to find where he was supposed to go. And Alan Lazard is the one that you could say,

like, if he was going to trust anyone, I think Lazard was out in that game in 2020. If he's going to trust anyone now, it is Lazard because he's had experience with him since 2018. If he cannot play, then it's a lot of guys that he doesn't have any work with. And I mean, last year, I mean, still Lazard only ended up with 40 catches. So yeah, I mean, that is, that to me is one of the biggest storylines just in general is how does he adapt to these wide receivers or does he spread the ball all over the place? Does he find somebody that he's comfortable with? Sammy Watkins is capable of having big games by the way, every once in a while. So you do have to have some concern about that because Watkins has a lot of talent. He's just been like a big spike here and then

disappearance, big spike there, disappearance. But the Packers run game is a huge part of this conversation. And that is something that we haven't said very often during the Aaron Rodgers era and Harrison Phillips debut is something to watch for sure in the interior. But Delvin Tomlinson is part of this as well. Last year, the Vikings were tremendously bad at their run defense. And a major reason for that was just that Michael Pierce was not in there very often. And when he was in there, he was banged up for a couple of games. If Michael Pierce plays the whole season, I wonder if they win one of those games that they lost where the other team just pounded it down their throats. Los Angeles was a good example of that. Cleveland was a good example of that. And one thing Harrison Phillips has going for him, other than the fact that he's kind of a truck, like he's like with the widest guy. So he's good at stuffing the run. He had one of the best run stopping grades by PFF in the NFL last year.

And he's also healthy for a lot of his career. He's been very healthy. And that's a big deal for this Vikings team. So I don't know if Harrison Phillips becomes the most important because I still think Rodgers will find people to throw the ball to if you give him time. So the pass rush is key, but it's definitely up there because if they're able to just run the ball and run the ball, then you're talking about the most favorable of circumstances. And I can pull this up right now about Aaron Rodgers and play action because it, you know, he didn't have to run play action a whole lot during Mike McCarthy. He could just

stand back there and throw the ball around. But these days, uh, Rogers does use play action quite a bit. So last year when he was running play action, let me call this up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 118.3 quarterback rating. Uh, yeah. So Aaron Rogers play action pretty good. And he's, you know, he's good at everything, but that was higher than Kirk cousins last year for, uh, being, you know, among the best in the entire NFL when running play action. And if they're running effectively, then that's going to set up a lot of opportunities to run those play actions. That is the last thing you want. So I think that's a good, I think that's a good call that maybe the underrated player to watch is Harrison Phillips in the middle. Okay. We're

going to, we're going to keep rolling here. We got a ton more questions to get to, and I'm having a lot of fun here, but let me get a, a swig of diet. Dr. Pepper first picked a really hot day to do this diet. Dr. Pepper was a good choice. All right. Not an, not an ad by the way, still, if you were wondering, uh, all right. So, uh, this comes from my buddy, Steven Strom, not just friend of the show, but just friend in general says, we know that Mike Zimmer has had some pretty good success against Aaron Rogers. What do you think Ed Donateatell will do similarly or differently when it comes to trying to disrupt Rodgers? Number one would be to rush with four.

In Mike Zimmer's best days against Aaron Rodgers, rushing with four was the key. Everson Griffin was the key. That if Everson Griffin could get home and cause havoc and beat Bakhtiari, like think about what a huge asset David Bakhtiari has been in his career to Aaron Rodgers. If Everson Griffin could beat him around the edge and cause problems for Rodgers, that gave Mike Zimmer a lot of opportunities to do things on the back end or send extra pressures and just know that they were going to get home against Rogers. I think, you know, last year it was really a good example of what not having that front four rush does. Mike Zimmer tried too hard last year to send pressures at Rogers all the time. It was throughout that game, especially in the second half is just blitz, blitz, blitz. And Rogers just picked them apart in previous years. What Mike Zimmer was great at against Rogers was send for send for

send for all game. And then out of nowhere on a second down, here's a blitz. You remember, I think, was it McKenzie Alexander had two sacks in a game. It was just like, what McKenzie Alexander is blitzing off the edge now. Uh, but for that game, he did. The other thing was, and this is what they could do similarly that you can scheme up. Cause you can't really scheme the rush for it's like, do you get there or not? But what they could scheme up is Harrison Smith is so good at deception. And I know that the Vikings have talked about wanting to play two deep safeties all the time and then changing after the snap that that's like a fundamental principle. But one of the things that Harrison Smith was so good at is he would come up to the line of scrimmage and he would make Rogers adjust to having that extra man in the box. And then just before the snap, after he had done the

adjustment, he had changed the protection, whatever, then Harrison Smith would drop back and play the deep safety. And Aaron Rogers just got flummoxed. I remember, I remember doing even like a film piece where I looked at all those things, like all those plays where they had gone wrong. I think maybe in the 2016 game that the Packers offense had sputtered and on almost every single one of them, it was when Harrison Smith ended up somewhere different than where he lined up. And that is something you don't want to take out of the Vikings defense that worked really, really well. Cause I, I, I know that Aaron Rogers is marvelous at everything, but he's not like, like soup,

like perfect. He's not Superman. Right. So he can be confused that the line of scrimmage, he can be flustered as well. And I think Harrison Smith is the guy that's gotten him the most. So use Harrison Smith to the peak of his abilities in this game, I would say is the thing that they should carry over. But that is true. Zimmer had his faults, but he also had some really good games against Aaron Rogers or, or limit him, uh, on a number of occasions. There were other times where he didn't, but on a number of occasions, Rogers had tough games. I'm thinking of 2018 the second game against the vikings at home or it's just a miserable night for him and even the 2019 game that the packers won rogers threw what did he throw two picks in that game like it was uh or he had a fumble too it was not a good

game for him and you know zimmer i i think was one of his best foes and knew him the best as far as storylines there are a hundred but it's one of them that you know ed donatel is back as a defensive coordinator and how is he going to play call against aaron rogers how will he handle the things that have worked so well for matt lafleur to win 13 games every year uh scheme versus scheme a lot of new players a lot of adjustments no playing together in preseason, like all these things going against the best quarterback. Harrison Smith is still your main asset for throwing off Aaron Rodgers beyond just what you expect from the front four

pressure. All right. Rapid firing here through questions at that guy, Frank 29. What are your thoughts on Green Bay's receiving core for this year? And how long do you think it will take them to click with Rogers? Yeah, I think it's pretty rough. I mean, I don't think there's any way around that. Like if we look at the Packers depth chart here, like how many people could you stop on the street? Let's say that you, uh, that you're not talking about fantasy football nuts,

just regular football people. And you said, who are Aaron Rogers top three wide receivers? Like how many would know how many even general football fans in say, like, I don't know, Arizona would know who his top three receivers are. Randall Cobb is just a guy at this point in his career. Romeo Dubes is a fourth round draft pick. So I'm not super sold that he's going to take over the league. Sammy Watkins is good for a handful of games per year. Alan Lazard, as I mentioned, his top receptions was 40. And Christian Watson has been banged up here.

I think that Robert Tunyon ends up being really huge for him. And also Aaron Jones ends up being really huge for him because we do forget about that, that Aaron Jones is tremendous out of the backfield and that, and that Rogers is always great at working his way back to the running back and checking down in the right way. And even they have in the past used Jones down the field a little bit like that could be a factor, the running back out of the backfield that he could lean on him much more somewhat in the way where Tom Brady,

when he kind of lost all his receivers started throwing to the running backs all the time. That could be something that we see quite a bit as far as how long it'll take him to gel with Rogers. I wouldn't be stunned if right away he comes out and throws for 350 yards because he's Rogers. And it has to be frustrating for Vikings fans to hear year in and year out how great Aaron Rogers is.

But my gosh, he's still that guy. Like you can't underrate that. But I do think reasonably speaking that I think like three, four weeks until he really gets comfortable with those guys and knows who he can trust. Because at this point, I don't think he knows which one of them he wants to be that guy. And he's going to have to discover that over a number of weeks. So I would say probably the first quarter of the season, if they go two and two, or they get a defensive and running win or something like that, um, then they're going to still feel pretty good about where they are

this season. If he has found which one of those guys is kind of his go-to, uh, this from at swerving Mervin on Twitter. I know it's Aaron Rogers and he'll always do what he does, but which of these wide receivers are cause for concern. They seem shockingly subpar famous last words. Yeah. The guy who would be the one where you went, Oh, really? Fourth round pick Romeo dupes. You gotta be kidding me. He wasn't even the top receiver that they drafted, but Romeo Dubes made a lot of noise in training camp and you don't always have to be a top draft pick for this team and this quarterback to make something out of it. So I don't know a lot about Romeo Dubes. I'm interested in seeing him play. He went to Nevada. He's six, two.

That's what I got right now on Romeo Dukes, but that just sort of screams, Oh, they drafted Christian Watson traded with the Vikings. And that was the guy you expected to ruin your Sundays for years to come. And instead it's this random fourth round dude from Nevada who emerged kind of out of nowhere. That, that would be my pick, uh, for the, um, you know, like classic sort of Viking stuff of like, Oh no, we let them have a receiver and I wasn't even him. Anyway. Uh, this comes from at Swede skull on Twitter. If you line up the Packers and Vikings position groups side by side, which team is built better at each position? The trenches go to the Packers for the moment. We'll see what their offensive line looks like, but if they have Bakhtiari and Jenkins, they're a good team.

They're a very good team on the offensive line if they have those guys. Defensive line is the Packers. Preston Smith, Rashawn Gary, Kenny Clark. It's closer to even. I'm still going to give them the slight edge. It is close. It is closer to even though, you know, with Zedarius and Daniil Hunter being healthy and looking good. So maybe, maybe I should go even on the defensive line. Secondary is clearly the Packers. Uh, linebacker is probably the Vikings, but, uh, Devondre Campbell is still a very good player. Quarterback is clearly the Packers receiver is not even remotely close. It's that's the Vikings.

And then running back is probably even, uh, with both of these teams having great running back rooms. So the offensive line goes to the Packers. The secondary goes to the Packers. The quarterback goes to the Packers. The rest is probably pretty close. Those things can determine football games, but, uh, this is, you know, it's, it's one game and the Vikings are healthy. So that helps them a lot here. But I, you know, I think when both of these teams are healthy, it's fairly close overall. If you add it up all of the talent, it's just that that team has that one guy at quarterback. And that's usually the difference. Um, but in one game, the Vikings have shown they can absolutely beat green Bay. And I think, I think that green Bay is a little closer to a team where if anything goes wrong, they're going to have serious problems like with injuries and things

like that, because they don't have, they don't have that automatic fix it button in Devante Adams. Like if their defense was struggling, whoops, we'll just score more points with Devante Adams. You know, if, if a couple of receivers got hurt and Adams was healthy, then you just throw it to him more, uh, that fix it button is not there. I think that the, uh, the line to walk is a little more thin. Uh, let's see. Well, uh, Jason, Jason Engler on Twitter asks which no name, uh, Packers receiver will be a hall of famer after this game. I mean, that's, it's certainly dupes is the answer there, but you know, maybe it's like, uh, Samori Trey. Is that how you say his name? I don't know anything about him, but he was a seventh rounder for this year out of Nebraska. So maybe that's the guy that, uh,

I don't even know if he's going to play or be active, but I picked the most random guy in their depth chart. Amari Rogers fell in the draft because he didn't have very good athletic numbers. Maybe it's him. Um, but yeah, Romeo dupes is like the runaway answer to this question. Uh, this comes from at DJ two last names. Talk me into which type of cheese the Vikings would be. Come on. It's just too easy, right? Swiss cheese, their defense. Come on. I don't, I, yeah, I don't know. Other than that, I don't, I don't know like a lot of different kinds of cheeses or how they would relate to football teams, but the joke was right there. People set me up, uh, this from at verm cat, how many snaps before we see Kenny

Clark lift Garrett Bradbury. Yeah. It's a concern. It is a concern. It certainly is. Yep. That matchup, how they work around that matchup. And, you know, I want to just say that all of your criticisms of Garrett Bradbury are right. No one's wrong for saying this. If he were to turn it around this year, it would be a great story because he's just taken such a beating. I mean, he got benched last year. His coach showed no confidence in him this year. Kevin O'Connell has said all positive things about everyone, but really left the door open with Garrett Bradbury when he was asked about him.

And, uh, you know, they talked about competition for your position, but pretty much nobody else is on the offensive line except right guard. And just, he's taken a beating. And if he plays well against Kenny Clark, maybe it sets him off on a little bit more of a, you know, a confident start than he's gotten in the past. But I would not bet on that. And, uh, I would say the first, the first third down of the game maybe is when that happens. Uh, okay. Let's see this from Maniacs Midway, who are the top five key players for the Vikings to get a win on Sunday afternoon.

You know, and I could go with, like, the obvious ones are the obvious ones. So I kind of don't have to fill in the, like, Zedarius, Kirk Cousins, Justin Jefferson. I think Harrison Phillips, though, from the earlier person asking is a really good one. I also think, though, that, like, Shandon Sullivan is a really key player here and combine them like the coverage. These receivers deserve no respect, make no mistake, but Sammy Watkins and Randall Cobb are NFL players. They can make plays. If you let them, they can make plays. Uh, they, the Vikings need to cover. And that is the biggest thing that I'm concerned about with that defense as a whole. And so I think that as far as key players go to winning, it's clearly the interior lineman and, you know, Ed Ingram and his first start is a major key to this game. And then those two guys in the

secondary that are, I don't know that Sullivan is like completely unproven because he's played, but this is a new team and a new defense. And then Cam Bynum, you know, he had a really good camp and really good brief appearances last year, but it's not like he played a lot. So I think those are some key players that maybe we haven't talked about, but eventually if we keep saying key players, we'll kind of get to just like everybody, like everybody's got to play good. If you're going to beat the Packers, that's just how it is. Let's see at we're going to make this one epic. My friends, I just pulled up the file here and did not realize that we've been going on for as long as we have, but this has just been super fun. So I'm just going to keep going. And if you've got things to do with your life, then put them off. Um, this comes from, uh, at Devlin Clark, Devlin Clark, 84.

Why are so many national outlets giving the Packers so much praise? Am I the only one who thinks they're going to finish under 500 and Rogers is going to blow up the team in a bad way? Uh, they will give them praise until Aaron Rogers gives them a reason not to. I think that's what it comes down to, right? Like, why do they give give them praise until Aaron Rogers gives them a reason not to. I think that's what it comes down to, right? Like why do they give the team praise? Because historically they've won all the time. And Aaron Rogers has won all the time. He's in the playoffs. He's winning divisions. A team wins 13 games, three years in a row. Nobody's saying, Hey, that team's going to

fall off. It does happen. Eventually every team does, but I mean, this could be kind of like that Patriots year for them, where it was Brady's last year in new England, where they were still a competitive team and they made the playoffs, but it wasn't the same or really like even the 2018 team where it started to come apart with McCarthy. But I think Lafleur is a better coach. So you can see them drift back to the pack a little bit. Um, no pun intended there, but like until you show it, and this is what is so funny about, like, I'll see this all the time. Why aren't people respecting the Vikings? Like what? Cause you have to prove it. I don't know.

You missed the playoffs the last two years. What do you expect? When I was in Buffalo, this happened all the time. And this, like, fans would ask, why isn't the national media giving us our attention? And then I see today that NFL Network, every analyst picked the Bills for the Super Bowl. Why is that?

Why could that be? Oh, I don't know. They're good. Like, Josh Allen is great. That's why. That's why they're still for the Super Bowl. Why is that? Why could that be? Oh, I don't know. They're good. Like Josh Allen is great. That's why. That's why they're still picking the Packers. It's really not that complicated. Let's see here. So this comes from at Coconose John on Twitter with 17 games versus 16 now and a chance to be going to 18. When does the roster size expand? I don't have a good answer for you there. It's not going to go to 18 anytime soon. Uh, the roster has really expanded anyway. I mean, when we talk about 16, um, players on the

practice squad, like that's a pretty big expansion of the roster. So I don't see that. Um, I don't see that happening anytime soon. Uh, let's go to, and, and, and the CBA goes for like years from now. So you're not going to see like 18 games happen soon. It has to go through the next CBA. I believe I could be wrong. Uh, but I, I think that that's, that it's going to be a while. Um, this from at Fitz thoughts outside of win loss, because we know any given Sunday, what are you looking for in this game to indicate the direction the Vikings are headed this season? Great question, Chad. Hopefully you get to this one when you listen to the show, because I know it's really deep in the show, but it's a great question. Yes.

If they are to lose 34, 31, none of us are going to walk out of there going, Oh man, O'Connell era is over. Of course not. Uh, I'm looking for the coaching to be different. I mean, the players are going to be the players. They are who they are. There's not too many guys on this team that we're trying to find out about cam bynum is like one of them right the players are who they are and i think how this thing turns out will come down to of course the execution but how you coach this how you coach through those stretches where kirk has a little trouble how you navigate those situations where you have an unsuccessful run on first down or how are you setting up the pass with the run how are you scheming against a very violent

Packers defensive line how are you handling in-game situations is Kevin O'Connell against the biggest rival this team has in a full stadium going to go for it on fourth down and five at his own 45 yard line like are those things going to happen? And if they show that they are more aggressive, that they are airing it out more, that they're trusting Cousins more, I think that would be quite the indicator for the future, even if they don't end up coming out with a win. Let's see.

This from at JT Laurie. Do you think we see a breakout performance from irv smith against the packers i don't know but i would lean toward no i think it's going to take a couple weeks for smith to get back to 100 to get fully acclimated in the offense to feel confident i could see him having a couple of catches to kind of shake the rust off, but even in what was it? 2020, we talked about a little bit of a slow start to the season for him. He's missed a lot of time and a lot of football. And I think it does take a few weeks to ramp up. I remember this with a Latavius Murray, where we were like, is this a bust signing? What's up with this dude through the first few weeks and then it clicked in um so if he comes

out and he's dominant right away well wow that's such a huge win for them but i would not bet on that being the case all right last one this from purple jeff 777 working out the kinks of a new offensive scheme at game speed against the tough green bay packers on sunday seems like a tall task yes we got into the season mostly injury free with all the new, new moving parts. But I think we should have played our ones in the preseason. I don't, I don't,

um, you know, one of the reasons is not just health. Health is the biggest thing, but it's also, they had joint practices against the 49ers, which were really intense, but this is also a three 65 football league.

I mean, this is like every player who's serious about their craft is okay. They take vacations. They take time with family. Right, right, right. But these guys are preparing so much and have been around for so long. Like Kirk cousins is 34 years old. He's been through a ton of different offenses. Like this man knows how to learn an offense and get ready to play in a season. And Cousins was even asked about no preseason today. And I think he

said, like, I don't remember it being an issue really at all. Um, their offense, uh, in 2020 started out slowly, but I don't think it was because they didn't play a preseason because everybody didn't play a preseason that year. I think it was more because Justin Jefferson wasn't ready to go. And once he was, they took off. I think there's a lot of teams that have not been playing their guys in preseasons and have done great. I don't think you get much out of it, especially since you're trying not to show anything. So you're not really running your real offense. It's much better to just practice the heck out of it at full speed, especially against another team for a couple of days, and then just go from there and be a hundred percent

healthy and not banged up with dudes on the other team who are trying to like make the team or something. So yeah. Okay. Great questions. Great questions. Great questions. An hour's worth of Vikings fans only questions. Feel free to send them at purple insider.com. Uh, if more come in throughout the night, I think, uh, will ragged and I will try to answer some more great stuff

from everybody. I mean, I, I didn't even edit out any questions. Everybody was different and everybody brought something new. I just pulled up the tweets from where I put it out there and just read them one by one. And you guys absolutely brought it. So I can't thank you enough for that. Always great and smart and interesting questions to make these episodes all sorts of fun. You know, a while back, I was just always like anxious about, I've got to get a guest for every show. I've got to get a guest for every show.

I've got to get a guest for every show. And then I kind of had this idea like, oh man, everybody has these good mailbag questions for the website and stuff. So maybe I'll just try to read a few on the show. So many came in and then your feedback to these things has been so nice that like you are co-hosting the show. That's why it's fans only. So you are the guest of the show. And so I love the questions. Please keep sending them. They are always so thoughtful and, uh, Packers Vikings folks, lots to come by the way, still on the show. And we'll talk to you soon.